English Dub Review: Clevatess “The Lord of Dark Beasts”

The Lion, the Witch, and a baby.
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Clevatess, one of the Lords of Dark Beasts that rules over a large continent, adopts a human orphan in order to see if there is worth left in humanity. To assist in this, he revives one of the human warriors he previous slayed, Alicia, to accompany him with taking care of this baby.

OUR TAKE

New anime over here, fresh out of the oven, get it while it’s hot! And it’s a double length first episode, which is usually saved for big hyped up releases. Well, in the case of Clevatess, it seems more because there is simply WAY TOO MUCH EXPOSITION TO GET THROUGH. The episode starts from Alicia’s perspective, as she grows up with hopes of saving her continent from the restrictive rule of the Lords of Dark Beasts who keep the human race from exploring for some unexplained reason. Naturally, this leads us to believe this series will follow her as she builds up her strength and magical abilities to conquer these beasts and save humanity…but then we see her going with a group of knights only for them to be completely slaughtered with little to no effort from the eponymous Clevatess, a giant black lion monster who is one of the lords. Perspective then shifts to his trek through human territories and only facing resistance and hostility (which is not exactly surprising when a giant lion with deadly tendrils comes crashing through your neighborhood), all the while wondering if maybe the human race is simply not worth saving or keeping around.

This changes when he comes across a dying mother and her infant, which Clevatess adopts, and sees if he can raise this wee bab to be the testament to humanity and its good nature. However, it turns out giant lion demons are not the best at taking care of children. He’s able to keep the child from harm or injury and help it sleep, which are both important things that a lot of regular parents have a hard time with sometimes, but then there’s the matter of feeding it. So, for some reason, he thinks that bringing back the one woman warrior who fought him, Alicia, will solve this. After a very cringeworthy scene of him making her take off her clothes and realizing she can’t give milk, he instead decides to take on human form, specifically of the child’s dead mother, in order to look for some help with that. And thus, we have a premise for the next eleven episodes as this unlikely family treks across the land to raise this child. As you can tell by this review being mostly description, it feels like just about all I can do is say what happened, as I’m not sure what to make of this show just yet. Well, other than the fact that this episode, despite being twice as long as normal, is dense with plot, and that borders on overwhelming, especially with all of the exposition to get us caught up with the world that I’ll spare you until it becomes plot-relevant. Still, the show looks good and the premise is interesting, so I’m sure it’ll be fine. But we’ll see.